Wednesday, 22 February 2017

Book Blitz: Hawk's Promise by Nola Cross

When an old friendship promises to become so much more.Desiree Taylor was just ten years old when Hawk Ironcloud joined the army. The young man she had come to think of as her big brother disappeared from her life, but she’ll never forget him. No man she met afterward could ever measure up to Hawk. More than a decade later a sudden family tragedy reunites the two of them. Now an adult, Desi finds herself plagued by a whole new set of powerful and confusing emotions.Hawk has learned from hard experience that he’s just no good at relationships. When Desi comes back into his life he struggles to deny his feelings for her. When that doesn’t work he pushes her away—for her own good. But circumstances throw them together again, and this time there’s no turning away from the smoldering attraction that flares up between them.Now Hawk and Desi must decide whether they are stuck in the role of brother and sister or old friends, or can they become something much more?

It was hard to believe she was really there. That the man who sat across from her was not, after all, some figment of her ten-year-old imagination. As she ate her meat and thick-cut fries, she studied him from under lowered lashes. He looked much as she remembered, but heavier, more filled out. His skin was not as tanned as it used to be, maybe because he now spent more time indoors, but the Native American genes from his mother’s side were plain in his black eyes, thick brows, and high cheekbones. He wore his hair long now, neatly banded in a ponytail that reached halfway down his back. She couldn’t remember which tribe his mother had been affiliated with. Maybe someday she would ask him. For now, she found herself feeling shy.“I was sorry to hear about your mom. Dovie told me she read the obituary in the paper. I would have sent you a card if I’d had your address.”A momentary wince of pain flashed across his face and then was gone. “Thanks,” he said, cutting another bite of meat.“I remember her as being such a nice person.”He nodded, his lips twisting in a wry smile. “Yeah, she was way too nice for...”At his abrupt silence she dropped her gaze and nodded. “For my dad. I know. You can go ahead and say it.”Instead he poked the bite of steak into his mouth.“She used to tell the best stories. Remember the coyote tales? I loved those.”“Yeah. Good times.” He scowled. After a moment he wiped his mouth on his napkin and leaned back in the booth.“So. Desi. I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad I can be a support for you right now. But I gotta know. How did you find me?”Desi reached down and opened her handbag and took out a stack of envelopes. She set them on the table between their two plates.“I found these this morning in Dovie’s bottom dresser drawer.”“Ah.” His gaze rested on the envelopes as if they were a pile of venomous snakes. “So she kept my letters.”

EXCERPT 2:

It was the hottest thing he’d ever seen. Ever felt.He couldn’t make it last. In the next instant he was swept into a monster wave of heat and starlight that sent him spinning to the very edge of consciousness. He let the wave take him, unable to do anything else. There was a vague twinge of embarrassment in the mix, but that was overridden by his body’s eager, primal response to her mouth, her touch. Her incredible sexuality.When he managed to open his eyes again, she was using her pajama top to wipe her breasts. Now he did feel chagrined. He reached out and attempted to brush her hair back over her shoulder.“Sorry about that. That was way more one-sided than it should have been.”“That’s okay,” she said, meeting his eyes for only a second or two. “That was pretty much what I was going for.”He sat up. “Let’s go upstairs. If you lay across the bed, I think I can—”“No.”“Dez. Come on. I’ve been told I’m pretty good with my tongue. Let me at least reciprocate.”She shook her head, then stood and took one more swipe at herself. The dawn had broken fully now, and he was smacked with how perfect she was, standing there half-dressed in the morning light, with the glory of her hair loose around her.“That day you left to join the army, you gave me something to remember,” she said. “And I did. I hung on to that memory for eleven years, Hawk.” She smiled and shrugged. “Now I’ve given you something to think about for a while.”

BIO – Nola Cross – Hawk’s PromiseNola began writing before she even started school and won her first writing contest at the age of nine. It’s always been her dream to be an author. She’s a two-time Golden Heart finalist and several of herstories have been Amazon best sellers. For awhile she penned erotic fiction under a pseudonym. Although it was fun to explore her “darker side”, she is now answering the true call of her heart.

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To write bigger stories that focus on emotion, loss, spirit, and true love, stories she hopes her readers will relate to and want to read more than once. Small town America is her favorite fictional setting.She lives in a funky, comfortable fixer-upper on three wooded acres in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, in southwest Washington state. With her husband and youngest son she runs a family business in a small town nearby, a town very similar to the ones she writes about. At home, three fine cats and a collie dog act as her muses. And four years ago the family welcomed their first grandchild, darling Ona Mae.Nola loves to connect with readers and other authors.